[4] Dissatisfied with the working conditions for Africans in businesses, Sangala joined the civil service in April 1930 as a clerk in the office of the Provincial Commissioner in Blantyre.

In 1947 he returned to the Blantyre District Office, but retired in the early 1950s so he could spend more time on politics, receiving a small government pension and running a brick manufacturing business as his main source of income.

[9] James Frederick Sangala in Blantyre and Levi Mumba in the rest of the country became leaders of the Native Association movement in Nyasaland during the 1930s.

Nyasas resisted this move since they regarded the Rhodesias as "White Man" territory, and preferred the trusteeship arrangement in Nyasaland under which they had greater rights.

As early as 1935, the Blantyre Native Association led by Sangala called a meeting of leaders in the area where they were invited to sign a petition opposing amalgamation.

A few months later the Council renamed itself the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) at the urging of Sangala, who felt the movement should not be restricted to the educated elite.

[14] Sangala, Mumba and their associates had a vision of the NAC becoming "the mouthpiece of the Africans", cooperating with the government and other colonial bodies "in any matters necessary to speed up the progress of Nyasaland".

[15] Sangala encouraged the Congress to "Fight for Freedom", although he was careful to explain to the colonial powers that he did not mean armed conflict by that phrase.

[12] Sangala explained to the District Commissioner, Eric Barnes, that he advocated peaceful protests against practices such as curfews and pass laws which treated Africans as a subordinate race.

[18] Until the early 1950s, Sangala and other leaders such as Doctor Hastings Banda assumed that Nyasaland should evolve towards self-government while remaining under the authority of the British Colonial Office.

[19] However, in 1953 the Colonial Office established the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in which Europeans would retain a position of leadership, abandoning the earlier principles of partnership between the races.

Although he continued to advocate civil disobedience, he also accepted the decision of two NAC members to run for election for the two seats reserved for Nyasas in the Federal Parliament.

Others who remained in the party attempted a coup towards the end of 1955, calling for resignation of the two MPs and for the NAC to work for immediate secession from the federation and self-rule.

[28] He was charged with having advised Thamar Dillon Thomas Banda, the secretary-general of the Congress, to hand a seditious publication to the editor of the Nyasaland Times.

[29] In January 1957, Sangala was persuaded to resign from his position as Nyasaland African Congress President, and was replaced by Thamar Dillon Thomas Banda.

[30] The NAC was banned by the colonial authorities in 1959, and was succeeded by the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), led from prison by Dr. Hastings Banda.

[32] In 1961 the MCP overwhelmingly won the first elections held under universal suffrage, and in 1963 the country gained self governance followed by independence the next year with the new name of Malawi.

Sangala was a strong believer in the virtues of dignity, and refused to accept common views within colonial society that the "natives" were in any way inferior to Whites.